What is the Token Minority?
The token minority was created by the entertainment industry to satisfy the minorities asking for accurate representations of their cultures. This includes having a single actor/actress represent a multitude of ethnicities to satisfy the “requirement” of being inclusive.
Some examples of this are John Cho, Constance Wu, Jamie Chung, Lana Condor. You’ve probably heard of them before and noticed that they often are chosen to represent all Asian ethnicities. Even though most of them are of one ethnicity, they tend to be representative of all Asians. But they actually aren’t representing all Asians; they represent most central and western Asians like Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. But because the media has been conditioned to accept them as the all Asian actor/actress, they have become the models for Asians in the United States.
The industry really has adapted and grown if we compare it to its past, but there is still a long way to go before anyone is truly getting the accurate representation that is not clouded by white domination and Eurocentric standards.
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